


i'll be home for christmas

by smilebackwards



Series: the streets are full of strangers [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, The Hilltop (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: It actually ends up in the damn treaty. Inked and signed on some fancy parchment paper Enid dug up in an abandoned craft shop somewhere, like they were writing the dang Declaration of Independence.Article 48: Daryl Dixon will spend Christmas in the Alexandria Safe Zone.





	i'll be home for christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably make more sense if you've read 'the streets are full of strangers' but essentially Daryl and Paul are together and living at Hilltop. I used the bingo prompt 'lights'.

It actually ends up in the damn treaty. Inked and signed on some fancy parchment paper Enid dug up in an abandoned craft shop somewhere, like they were writing the dang Declaration of Independence.

Article 48: Daryl Dixon will spend Christmas in the Alexandria Safe Zone. 

_What the fuck,_ Daryl thinks, reading it where it’s been tacked up carefully on the community noticeboard alongside the list of odd supplies people want Daryl and Paul to keep an eye out for on supply runs and the livestock chore wheel.

The treaty is theoretically in place for the next five years, which is ridiculously optimistic in Daryl’s opinion. They could all be in the ground five _days,_ from now, overrun by the dead or the tattered, immoral remnants of the living.

Still, it’s nice to know his family cares enough to put him in writing. That they want to see him for Christmas.

There are a few more articles after it, 52 in total, and then Deanna’s neat, cursive signature to stand for Alexandria and Gregory’s dickishly large scrawl—like he’s John fucking Hancock—for Hilltop.

As far as Daryl’s concerned, it’s a lot of fancy words on paper to say ‘don’t kill each other’ and ‘share’.

But Paul likes to gush about all the new primary source documents they’re creating. Like there’ll be some far off scholars that give a shit about this treaty or the plans for a new grain silo or the Yes/NO primers of plants Daryl’s taken to making because people can’t tell food from poison. 

Daryl spins the chore wheel to show that it’s Crystal’s turn to milk Bessie tomorrow and steps outside Barrington House. The wind slices straight through him. Snowflakes are starting to fall. Winter in Virginia is something altogether different from what passed in Georgia. Daryl’s taken to wearing sleeves. He doubts anyone has an accurate calendar after all this time, but Christmas must be coming up.

Paul is in their trailer talking to Maggie and Glenn, who’d brought the copies of the treaty for Gregory’s signature. Daryl’s willing to bet Gregory tried to get in some last minute self-serving amendments but Maggie can shut that kind of shit down with a look. 

“Don’t need to be puttin’ my name in no treaty,” Daryl tells her.

“Saw that, did you?” Maggie grins.

“What?” Paul asks, looking at them with sharp eyes.

“We get Daryl back in Alexandria for Christmas,” Glenn says. Clearly this was a conspiracy.

“Oh, that,” Paul says. “I thought that was decided months ago.”

“You comin’ with me?” Daryl asks and holds his breath. First holidays together is _a thing,_ or so Glenn’s told him.

“Of course. Carol invited me,” Paul says, blinking guilelessly, as if Daryl hadn’t been right there beside him to hear Carol’s exact words. _You can come too._

Daryl snorts. “All right. Pack your shit. Leavin’ tomorrow.”

 

 

Daryl hasn’t been back to Alexandria since Deanna asked him to leave. Staring up at the walls, part of him still thinks he shouldn’t be here, but then Tara whips open the gate and practically throws herself against the car window, yelling excitedly, “Daryl! Everyone, Daryl’s back!”

“Good Lord, woman,” Daryl says, climbing out of the car and letting her hug him. 

Carol is next. She has on gardening gloves. There’s a streak of dirt across her forehead. “We thought you might get here today,” she says, pecking Daryl on the cheek.

“He looks happy,” Carol says to Paul and gives him a cheek kiss too. Paul looks thrilled.

Rick and Michonne come out of one of the houses, Carl following behind carrying Lil’ Asskicker. Daryl’s throat feels stuck. “Hey,” he manages, hugging each of them in turn. 

“This one’s yours,” Rick says, guiding Daryl and Paul to the house next door. 

Daryl stares up at the neat two-story house. White clapboard. Blue shutters. Goddamn picturesque. And his, seemingly. Theirs.

“When you— left,” Rick says, politic, because apparently there had been some kind of throw down fight between him and Deanna after Daryl had been quietly ejected from the community in the middle of the night all those months ago and everyone was still trying to get past it, “we set this one aside for you.”

When Daryl doesn’t know what to say, he usually doesn’t say anything. 

“We’ll give you some time to settle in. Come on over for dinner later.” Rick pats him on the shoulder and walks back across the interconnected yards.

Daryl drifts through the house room by room, getting the lay of the land. Above the couch is a painting of two deer in the woods, a shadowy rectangle behind it showing that something larger used to hang there. The bedroom has camo patterned pillowcases. The towels in the hall bathroom are monogrammed with D’s. 

Daryl swallows around the lump in his throat. His family didn’t just save a house for him; they made him a home.

Paul finds him in the garage, where there’s a half-built motorcycle and a shit ton of parts that don’t match it. “Wow, your family must hate me,” Paul says, wrapping his arms around Daryl’s torso and laying his head against Daryl’s back.

“Ain’t like that,” Daryl says. He knows they meant it when they said they’d rather him be happy than close. Although both would’ve been preferable, Carol had added, smiling.

Hilltop isn’t as far as all that. He and Paul could stand to visit Alexandria more often. Someone needs to make trade runs anyhow.

“I found some things in the attic,” Paul says, tugging Daryl back into the house by the hand. 

There are three cardboard boxes, in various states of unpacked, on the floor in the living room. Daryl can see that one of them is labelled XMAS in marker on the side and has red and green cloth peeking out. A string of colored lights is half unspooled from another. 

Paul opens the flaps of the last box and pulls out a truly horrendous Santa figurine. He grins like it’s already Christmas morning and sets it on the coffee table. Daryl resigns himself to looking at it for the next few days at least. Longer if Paul decides to cart it back to Hilltop.

Daryl pulls a gold-edged platter out of the box while Paul hangs stockings from the mantle. It feels odd to bother with things so non-essential. Alexandria is an entire neighborhood that was never looted, where they can sort through all the accumulation of previous life without the self-imposed time limits they give themselves on supply runs. In and out. Food, medicine, weapons, visible miscellany, go.

Paul’s clever hands move to untangling the string lights. “Will you help me put these up outside?” he asks. “I want lights for Christmas.”

“That’s what you want for Christmas?” Daryl asks. “Don’t want no gold? Frankincense? Myrrh?”

Paul smiles at him. “I’ve already got what I really want.”

Daryl feels heat rise in his cheeks. He thinks he should be starting to get used to the sweet things Paul says to him, but every time still feels like the first. “‘Course I’ll help,” he says. 

Glenn had mentioned there was enough of a power grid from the solar panels and the engineering work Eugene’s done for a little light. If anybody says anything, Daryl and Paul can sacrifice the in-house power to the lamps in exchange. There’s plenty for them to do in the dark.

Paul’s original, brilliant plan is climbing out onto the roof and risking his damn fool neck. Daryl manages to hold him back long enough to dig up a ladder in the garage. 

Paul scrambles up and down the ladder agilely, laying the lights across the hooks beneath the gutters. He’s whistling something that Daryl recognizes from years back when his Momma used to sing along to the radio. _I’ll be home for Christmas. If only in my dreams._

Twenty minutes later, the whole front of the house is lined. “Moment of truth,” Paul says, and plugs the lights into the socket on the porch. 

They light up merrily, bright in the darkening evening. 

Paul smiles. The lights reflect color across his face, red and yellow and green and blue. Daryl feels a swell of something in his chest.

Paul clears his throat pointedly and nods his head upward. Daryl’s eyes follow the motion. There’s a sprig of green hanging in the doorframe, Paul grinning right beneath it.

It isn’t mistletoe. Daryl knows his plants and he knows pine when he sees it. But he doesn’t need an excuse anyway to pull Paul close and kiss him.  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved. I'm also [smilebackwards](https://smilebackwards.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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